We have resolved, however, to follow in the main the guidance of the ancient authorities, who, if credulous in things supernatural, had no motive but to write the truth, so far as it was known to them, for the instruction and edification of posterity. There was then only one Church, and they could have had no motive in representing St. Patrick to be anything else than what he was known to them—a great and successful Christian missionary of the Catholic Church. Those ancient authorities are in substantial